Education of the Deaf and Blind.—Persons defective in some sense organ, but otherwise up to the standard, have likewise for some time been receiving an education Manual that will minimize the difficulty. There have been two chief methods for teaching the deaf. The manual or ‘silent’ method of communication was invented by the Abbé de l’Épée in Paris during the latter part of the eighteenth century, and his school was adopted by the and oral methods for the deaf. nation in 1791. The other method, the ‘oral,’ by which the pupil learns to communicate through reading the movements of the lips, was started in Germany early in the eighteenth century, but was not employed to any great extent until the middle of the next century. Most countries now use the oral method exclusively, or in connection with the manual system. In the United States practically every commonwealth now has one or more schools for the deaf, and since 1864 even higher education has been furnished by Gallaudet College at Washington.
The first instruction of the blind through raised letters Schools for the blind in Europe and the United States. was given toward the end of the eighteenth century by Abbé Haüy at Paris. While his schools, owing to his lack of judgment, were failures, the idea spread rapidly. Early in the nineteenth century there were one or more schools in each of the leading countries of Europe, and a generation later institutions of this sort were started in the United States. In schools for the blind or deaf, industrial training has in most instances been added to the intellectual (see p. 300), in order to fit every individual to be an independent workman in some line. Even pupils, both deaf and blind, like Laura Bridgeman and Helen Keller, have had their minds awakened through the sense of touch.
Recent Development of Educational Method; Dewey’s Experimental School.—Nor has the past century witnessed any cessation of the attempts at improved methods of teaching. Various suggestions and systems have been put forward and many have had an important effect upon school procedure. It is impossible, however, to discuss any except a few of the more influential and prominent, and these can be considered but briefly. The occupational work of Professor Dewey and Colonel Colonel Parker’s contributions. Parker’s scheme of concentration have marked the growth of a body of educational theory and practice that places the methods of to-day far in advance of anything previously known. The combination and modification of Ritter, Herbart, and Froebel worked out by Parker have perhaps received sufficient attention (see [pp. 293], 350, and 364), but we may at this point outline a little more fully the contributions made by John Dewey, who has probably been the leader in the reconstruction that has taken place in education almost since the twentieth century began.
The methods of Dewey were developed in an experimental elementary school connected with the University of Chicago and under his supervision from 1896 to 1903. The school did not start with ready-made principles, but sought to solve three fundamental educational problems. Purpose It undertook to find out (1) how to bring the school into closer relation with the home and neighborhood life; (2) how to introduce subject-matter in history, science, and art that has a positive value and real significance in the child’s own life; and (3) how to carry on instruction in reading, writing, and figuring with everyday experience and occupation as their background “in such a way that the child shall feel their necessity through their connection with subjects which appeal to him on their own account.” The plan for meeting these needs was found largely in the study of industries. Since industries are most fundamental in the thought, ideals, and social organization of a people, these activities must have the most prominent place in the course of a school. “The school cannot be a preparation for social life except as it reproduces and course of Dewey’s school. the typical conditions of life.” The means used in furnishing this industrial activity were evolved mainly along the lines of shopwork, cooking, sewing, and weaving, although many subsidiary industries were also used. These occupations were, of course, intended for a liberalizing, rather than a technical purpose, and considerable time was given to an historical study of them ([Fig. 56]). Dewey declares: “The industrial history of man is not a materialistic or merely utilitarian affair. It is a matter of intelligence. Its record is the record of how man learned to think, to think to some effect, to transform the conditions of life so that life itself became a different thing. It is an ethical record as well; the account of the conditions which men have patiently wrought out to serve their ends.”
In harmony with Froebel,
It can be seen how fully this plan is in accord with the real principles of social coöperation and expression of individual activities underlying the work of Froebel; and “so far as these statements correctly represented Froebel’s educational philosophy,” Dewey generously grants that “the school should be regarded as its exponent.” But these industrial activities of the Chicago experimental school were not in the least suggested by Froebel’s work, and were far more expressive of real life. They never became as stereotyped and external as the but not as stereotyped, gifts or even as the occupations of the kindergarten have generally been. Dewey is insistent that this training shall be carried on not for the purpose of furnishing facts or principles to be learned, but for enabling the child to engage in the industrial occupations in miniature. “The school is not preparation for life: it is life.” Hence this training is superior to the occupations of Froebel in that “it maintains a balance between the intellectual and the practical phases of experience.” Where Froebel has held to the construction of beautiful things in mechanical ways, Dewey emphasizes the ordinary activities and experiences of life, even though the expression of these be crude. The child should be “given, wherever possible, intellectual responsibility for selecting the materials and instruments that are most fit, and given an opportunity to think out his own model and plan of work, led to perceive his own errors, and find how to correct them.” and work—not amusement—the spirit of the school. Thus the work was never “reduced to a mere routine or custom and its educational value lost.” As a result, too, it was the consensus of opinion that “while the children like, or love, to come to school, yet work, and not amusement, has been the spirit and teaching of the school; and that this freedom has been granted under such conditions of intelligent and sympathetic oversight as to be a means of upbuilding and strengthening character.”
Other Experiments in Method.—Hence, while the Chicago school is now at an end, the experiment in education developed there is still yielding abundant fruitage. It has stimulated similar undertakings elsewhere, and has been the largest factor in determining the theory and practice of the present day. Either as a result of Dewey’s work or through independent thought, there has sprung up an important group of schools in which there is clearly an effort to bring boys and girls of elementary school age into more intimate relation to community life about them. Such are the Gary (Indiana) Public Schools, Schools on a similar basis. the Francis W. Parker School of Chicago, the Elementary School at the University of Missouri, the Pestalozzi-Froebel School of Berlin, the Abbotsholme School in Derbyshire (England), and a number of others.
A good illustration is afforded in the school developed University of Missouri Elementary School: by Junius L. Meriam at Columbia, Missouri, although it has not been given much publicity. Its function is to help children do better in all those wholesome activities in which they normally engage. The school does not attend to the ‘three r’s’ as such, but specifically to particular its purpose and curriculum. activities of children, including (1) play, (2) observation, (3) handwork, and (4) stories, music, and art. These four ‘studies,’ representing real life, irrespective of the school, constitute the curriculum, and the ‘three r’s’ are studied only as they are needed. Their content, therefore, being used, as in life, in meeting real needs, is studied most effectively.
Gary school system:
An experiment that has attracted widespread interest is that worked out in the Gary school system by William A. Wirt. While the achievement is mostly in the way of a remarkable organization and administration that have undertaken to make available “all of the educational opportunities of the city all of the time for all of the people,” the teaching has to some extent been carried on so as to reveal to the pupils “that what they are doing its plant and methods. is worth while.” The school plant includes a playground, garden, workshop, social center, library, and traditional school, and it has been shown that these agencies, when properly organized, “secure the same attitude of mind toward the reading, writing, and arithmetic that the child normally has for play.” All the other schools that have been mentioned above make similar attempts to enable the children to get into closer touch with their environment. While each of them approaches the problems of elementary training from a different angle, they are all in harmony with the spirit of Dewey and present day theory.